id not long remain in Houston, as it
was apparent that there was nothing to be done by either side pending
the action of the courts, and in any event Dodge was abundantly supplied
with local counsel. The time had now come when Hummel must have begun to
feel that the fates were against him and that a twenty-year term in
state prison was a concrete possibility even for him.

In the meantime, Dodge and Bracken had taken up their headquarters at
the Rice Hotel in the most expensive suite of rooms in the house, a new
scheme for getting the prisoner beyond the reach of the New York courts
apparently having been concocted. Dodge was now indulged in every
conceivable luxury and vice. He was plunged into every sort of excess,
there was no debauchery which Bracken could supply that was not his and
their rapid method of existence was soon the talk of the county and
continued to be so for ten long months. There is more than one way to
kill a cat and more than one method of wiping out the only existing
witness against a desperate man striving to escape the consequences of
crime.

Dodge's daily routine was somewhat as follows: He never slept at his own
hotel, but arose in the morning between ten and eleven o'clock, when he
was at once visited by Bracken and supplied with numerous drinks in lieu
of the breakfast for which he never had any desire. At noon the two
would have luncheon with more drinks. In the afternoon they would retire
to the pool rooms and play the races, and, when the races were over,
they would then visit the faro banks and gamble until midnight or later.
Later on they would proceed to another resort on Louisiana Street where
Dodge really lived. Here his day may be said to have begun and here he
spent most of his money, frequently paying out as much as fifty dollars
a night for wine and invariably ending in a beastly state of
intoxication. It is quite probable that never in the history of
debauchery has any one man ever been so indulged in excesses of every
sort for the same period of time as Dodge was during the summer and fall
of 1904. The fugitive never placed his foot on mother earth. If they
were going only a block, Bracken called for a cab, and the two seemed to
take a special delight in making Jesse, as Jerome's representative,
spend as much money in cab hire as possible. The Houston jehus never
again experienced so profitable a time as they did during Dodge's wet
season; and the life of dissipation was conti